WINNER OF THE AGATHA • ARTHUR ELLIS • DILYS • DEBUT DAGGER AWARDS “Wonderfully entertaining . . . sure to be one of the most loved mysteries of the year . . . [Flavia is] a delightful, intrepid, acid-tongued new heroine.”—Chicago Sun-TimesIt is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a … for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.
For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”
BONUS: This edition contains a The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie discussion guide and an excerpt from Alan Bradley’s The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag.
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love the main character..the continuation of the storyline from book to book is very well plotted and entertaining
Great book with a change for main characters. What a delightful child.
I love the 11-year old detective and chemist, Flavia de Luce, who lives in a dilapidated family manse in England that nevertheless has a fully-equipped chemistry lab that belonged to her late, eccentric uncle. . She is hilarious and so are the books in which she plays detective. The several I have read have been uniformly entertaining and …
I have read all of Bradley’s books in this series for fans of precocious pre-teen female sleuths.
Alan Bradley’s book series starring brilliant adolescent Flavia de Luce, a chemistry prodigy turned super sleuth is really addictive!
“The sweetness at the bottom of the pie” is the first book in series. Order the free sample and I’ll bet you decide to buy the book!
Enjoyed this book and the others can’t wait to find out what’s next.
Wow! What a girl!
This is the first in a fantastic series. Bradley’s writing is perfection and Flavia De Luce is a joy.
Fun read
Love Flavia!
a fun series, with a thoroughly likable (tho rather unlikely) protagonist
Very cute read. Love the main character. Didn’t like the sequels as much.
a whimsical fantasy that dreaws you in
I heard a discussion and recommendation of this book on our local public radio station years before I read it. When they mentioned the intriguing title, it stuck with me. One day, while perusing the library shelves, I found it. I wish it hadn’t taken so long. This author manages tell the story through the first person narrative of a 12 year old girl, but the book is meant for adults. Flavia de Luce is smart, sassy, feisty, funny and innocent, making her way through life, trying to figure it out just like the rest of us did at her age. And she solves mysteries, too. This book managed to make me laugh, cheer and cry with tears streaming down my face. This book and the main character have my heart. I couldn’t recommend this book more highly. I love it so much.
What’s not to love about Flavia De Luce!? She’s the coolest grown-up 11 year old girl ever, and I’ve had to stop reading this series on the bus because I find myself laughing out loud at her situations. Very engaging, and hard to put down once you’ve started. Great mystery/suspense in each book. This is the first of the series and one of my favorites – love the characters!
Flavia DeLuc is like a younger Nancy Drew that is obsessed with Chemistry. I was a little surprised at how much I was able to relate to Flavia, despite the difference in age and time period. There is a fair amount of hilarity and a great amount of mystery and the unraveling of said mystery.
This is the first in the Flavia DeLuce series (I think). All of Bradley’s books are great. I highly recommend the audio version, as the woman who reads them is perfect!
Great original work
The eccentric de Luce household is disrupted from their regular pursuits by two arrivals- one bizarre and the other sinister. Murder is the result. The youngest member of the household, Flavia, turns from her favorite chemistry work to solve a crime that points toward her father as the culprit.
This first of a popular well-loved series was a strong first book outing. The success of its reception will depend on the reader/listener’s taste when it comes to eleven year old Flavia and the rest of the family. The de Luces are not like others. They all are brilliant and/or odd in their own ways from widowed father, three daughters who pursue diverse interests in music, books, and chemistry, a garrulous warmhearted cook-housekeeper and war-torn handyman. The sisters are abominable to each other, the father distant, and none are familial attached as they racket about their family’s old country estate near the village of Bishop’s Lacey in rural 195o’s England.
As you can guess by the rating, I am one who has a good time with Flavia and the rest of the de Luces along with the colorful characters of the village and the local police. Flavia is scary-brilliant for a child her age and, in fact, gets her back up if she gets treated like a child. She also tends to go at things on her own with an independence she learned from being dismissed or ignored to find her own way. Only Dogger, her father’s valet and the handyman, really pays her much attention.
The mystery was not that difficult to figure out though there were a few little surprises I didn’t see coming, but it was fun and exciting watching Flavia nose out the clues, both to the past and the present. There are little side jaunts to introduce matters because this is the first in a series and there are pauses to explain some technical bits related to Flavia’s detecting. There were a couple lagging moments, but only enough to notice that the plot was paused for an explanation like for the history of the stamps at the center of the mystery or how her father’s past fit into this story.
The author does a brilliant job conveying a young girl’s mind while at the same time showing she could think circles around many of the adults in her life. The historical setting, the quirky, colorful characters, and the mystery combine for a rather engaging tale. I will definitely be pushing forward with the series.
The narrator, Jayne Entwistle, is brilliant as Flavia and the rest of the cast of characters between age, gender, and class with her voices. She also somehow conveys the historical period and tone of the story. I saw everything so clearly in my mind with her telling the story.
While I entirely enjoyed this book (truly extraordinary & very cleve), I was extremely disappointed that this author & his books were not available to Canadians through e-books even though the author is Canadian!!! This reeks of manipulation so while I would normally have given this a 5 (really phenomenal writing, character development & plot precision), I can say, I am terribly disappointed – not sure whether that is to be attributed to the author & his contracts to the world of e-reading, or to KOBO.